


Ubuntu

by Aloice



Category: Final Fantasy XIII Series
Genre: Actually a fic about religion and God, Comfort No Hurt, Friendship, Gen, Vanille POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 07:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12930684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aloice/pseuds/Aloice
Summary: Ubuntun.a quality that includes the essential human virtues; compassion and humanity.Post!LR platonic Hope and Vanille, and how they help each other to heal.





	Ubuntu

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a rush so I'll probably come back for edits *sweats*
> 
> Also they totally met at UBC Rose Garden because reasons (aka: I have no shame)

The campus is situated right by the sea. It’s on a bit of a peninsula, sitting serenely above what used to be an ancient forest; as the bus eases its way slowly into university city, Vanille can’t help but gawk at the small odd shops, the flowers lining the streets, the brisk atmosphere in the air and the small clusters of brightly clad students wandering from building to building. _It’s like Academia_ , she thinks, frowning and then breaking into a wide smile. _It’s a colorful world of young people and the future, and it just seems right that Hope would throw himself right back into it._

The screen on the bus flashes. A pre-recorded female announcer’s voice, then new red letters. _Acadia Road_. If she’s reading her maps right, she has two more stops to go. Hope’s said that he’ll meet her at the rose garden at noon.

_It’s one thing to see people in your crystal dreams, and another thing to talk to them again…_

She squints, blushing a little, awkwardly poking at the buttons on her phone until she sees that photo of him, smiling contentedly as he stood under a flag pole overlooking the ocean. He’s still the same Hope she once knew – his smile is the same, his hair color is the same, she’s _seen_ him as an adult for centuries upon centuries – but the prospect of talking to him again, after everything, still sends a warm wave up her cheeks. It’s not because she’s romantically attracted to him or anything – _although who wouldn’t find him cute_ , she thinks almost furtively, giggling internally to herself – but because she is… she supposes… nervous.

_Especially because Fang isn’t here, no?_

Fang is more than her soulmate; they’ve been through hell and frozen crystal together, held each other’s hands as their world dissolved in molten lava and ice dust, but there are things that she has to do alone, and this is one of them. She remembers unlocking her phone in the middle of a tropical night next to a soundly snoring Fang and then staring at Hope’s little icon, pondering her options and forgotten tales of another world. There are things that she has to know. There is a friend that she really, really wants to meet again.

Hope pays for the plane ticket.

 

_University. Loop._

The students file out of the bus, a chorus of rising _thank you_ s. She snaps out of her trance, rushes to the door, and clumsily thanks the driver. He winks at her embarrassment. She wonders if he’s taking her for just another airheaded student.

 _I suppose I am around Serah’s age and she’s going to school again_ , she remembers, falling into a chair by the bus stop to try to read the map again. There’s a jitteriness in her chest, a small bird or butterfly that she can’t simply set free despite all her convictions and facades of confidence and cheeriness. _It’ll be all right, it’ll be all right_. Would she fall over him in a heap? Would he just tease her again? Would any of his students or illustrious colleagues laugh at her? It’s been so long…

“Excuse me?” A voice suddenly interrupts her train of thought, and she almost jumps in surprise. “Oh – I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to startle you –”

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” _– and I’m still not quite used to being a normal girl yet_ , she thinks ruefully, looking up at the source of the voice. A dark-haired girl in rimmed glasses and a simple navy-colored university shirt. “Can I help you?”

“Are you looking for something or someone?” The girl asks, her smile just a tiny bit uncertain. “You look lost –”

“Oh! Do you happen to know a... professor called Hope Estheim? In… the sciences?” Belatedly she realizes that the universities of the new world do not quite operate like the Academy; belatedly she realizes that she never knew all that much about the Academy anyway. “He’s, uh, really smart, tall and lean, silver-haired –”

The girl’s face falls. “Uh, I’m actually in the arts, so I don’t know the science professors, but if you can tell me the building –”

 _So Hope’s no longer famous anymore, not even at his own university_? She smiles easily and reaches encouragingly for the girl’s hands even as her mind begins to fill with questions. “That’s fine, can you just show me where the rose garden is?”

 

Living away from people had been Fang’s idea; _’bout time for some quality time just between you and me_ , the brunette had boasted, and she wasn’t going to shoot that down, not after everything they’d been through. The solitude gave them time to process the whole thing, to just let themselves loose, to actually _live_ – Fang gets to play again at her bandit dream, and they get to again live a fair distance away from mainstream civilization, continue to fantasize about a home world that has been erased thrice over. _It doesn’t matter if we’re together_ , Fang had vowed, gazing at her with such intensity that she’d felt compelled to stretch up on her toes to wrap her arms around the taller woman. _And there’s no God now, either, to get between us._

… Unless they count Hope as God all over again, of course.

 _Just a weekend_ , she had sung to Fang, braiding her lover’s hair and poking lovingly at the few rebellious strands that just wouldn’t submit to her control. _Hope’s paying for the whole thing and he says he’d love for us to visit. Come on. Don’t we owe it to him, considering he saved us when the Pillar fell and all?_

 _Can’t he pick a better time?_ Fang had grumbled, even as a small grin softened the curve of her lips. _You know just as well as me that I can’t possibly go right now. The excavation team –_

_We can go together in the summer! We can all go, you and I, Noel and Yeul, even Snow and Serah. Hope says he’s got something planned for all of us. But you know he’s always been close to me. I just want –_

_I know what you want, Vanille,_ Fang grumbled again, although her voice was suddenly quieter and impossibly tender, and her hands had frozen on the braid, a relieved and grateful well rising behind her eyelids. _Just come back to me at the end of it, okay?_

 

“It’s down there, at the end of the road,” the girl points, and she thanks her, pulling a half dozen exotic pins and postcards out of pockets to stuff into the flustered student’s hands. “Oh my God – there’s no need for gifts –”

“Just take them! I have too many of them, and they’re all really cool.” The first part of that sentence isn’t even a lie. She squints at the sun, then at the delicately constructed arched building just next to the garden. “Say – what is that building, over there?”

The girl – still pink in the face – follows her line of sight. “Oh, the brick building? That’s a church. I don’t remember what denomination, there are too many of them around here. They are probably offering Sunday services right now, though, if you are religious.”

She tilts her head. “Are you religious?”

“I –” The girl’s spluttering again. She probably shouldn’t be going around asking these kinds of questions to strangers. “I find the ideas of heaven and angels kind of cool, but I don’t really think they exist, so –”

“Cool! I think they are kind of amazing, too. Sometimes I feel like I’ve seen them in another lifetime. Thanks for everything! I think I’ve gotten here early, so I’m going to check out that church.”

 

She’s seen churches and temples in this world – in images, on TV, not to say conversed with religious people – yet she’s never physically entered one. _You’re not going near cathedrals ever again_ , Fang used to say, baring her teeth and raising her eyebrows dramatically, and for the most part she hasn’t found any reason to rebel or complain. The saint part of her life is behind her now, for better or for worse. Although she misses having some of the dead for friends, not being chased day and night by their often-angry humming and hissing has been an utter blessing, and she feels lighter now without their suffering and weight tying her down, freer, more human.

Still…

 _Have I actually done enough_? She wonders, biting her lip and again subconsciously crossing her fingers in Pulse prayer as she approaches the building on the side of the road, listens to the hymns rising from the interior of the divine house. The song of praise must be Latin, for she can’t quite understand it even as she strains to hear – yet she’s also understood nearly nothing of Bhunivelze or Etro’s verses, back in the day, so it almost strangely feels familiar. _Or are there still more things that I need to repent for?_

This world isn’t perfect. She’s seen Fang get into fights with men, read about things like war and fear and murder. _Bhunivelze made this world, not Lightning, so it can’t be helped._ Or is it humanity that is flawed, after all? Humanity that had sent PSICOM after the band of l’Cie before Cocoon’s Fall, tried to convince them all to die to maintain the façade of peace and prosperity? It had gotten so much better with the Academy and Hope in power. _All Fang and I needed to do was to hold up the Pillar. If the Pillar had held, Serah and Noel wouldn’t have needed to find another way. The Goddess wouldn’t have died. And…_

She’s close enough to peek into the open door now, and a flicker of recognition drowns out the sudden urge for tears. There, in the first row. That moon silver hair. Could it be –

The name falls from her tongue and silences the crowd before she could stop to hold it back.

“Hope?”

 

 

“It’s a good thing the service is basically over,” Hope remarks with a grin as he pulls slowly out of the hug. “Otherwise you might have heard a few choice words about interrupting a sermon.”

“– _Hey_!” She bats her fists against him, flaming red with embarrassment. A few other remaining worshippers are smiling at the two of them as they pass by. _They must think we’re a couple or something_. The thought only makes her redder. “You know I didn’t mean –”

“Of course, of course,” he laughs, reaching for her hand and pulling her gently towards the door, smiling and nodding at everyone he passes. They nod back respectfully at him. At least that aspect of him seemingly has stayed the same. “ _Vanille_ –” and then the voice is suddenly softer, full of feeling. “It’s so nice to see that you haven’t changed.”

“Hope!” She must be burning like the sun now. His eyes, though – they’re so earnest, so wonderfully green, and she knows he isn’t going to suddenly burst into full-on laughter as he did a thousand years ago on Gran Pulse, so she simply takes a few deep breaths, trying to collect herself. _He’s real. He’s alive._ “Hope, I’m so glad that you’re okay.”

“It’s been a while.” His tone is nostalgic, almost faraway. She stares at him – at his height, his impeccable formal clothing, the different curvature of his face and jaw against a background of kaleidoscopic stained glass – and something in her knees suddenly crumbles. He catches her before she falls. She thinks she’s going to start crying.

“Hope –”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers by her ear, picking her up despite her weak mumblings of protest and shuffling towards the door, “let’s get out of here, shall we?”

 

The roses are in full bloom. Under the pale cerulean sky and drinking in the ocean breezes below, they blossomed in varied shades of wine red, shy pink and golden yellow, scintillating stars against the bright green backdrop of the grass and the emerald solidarity of the tall spruces. Some seagulls are crying out, calling for rivals and families as they observe the waves. She lay sprawled out on the grass, inhaling. It smells like summer and home.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Hope murmurs, stretching on a pale wooden memorial bench. She shifts her position briefly so she can see his face. “I figured you’d like it, since it reminds me of both Gran Pulse and Bodhum. I come here a lot. To eat lunch, to read, or to grade exams – I’m lucky to find this campus.”

“Couldn’t you have taught anywhere you wanted? You were like, the Director of the Academy, not to say –”

“I’m just an instructor and researcher here, you know. Nothing important or famous.” A self-depreciating smile has crept into his eyes, and her heart leaps at the sight, that hint of vulnerability she’s treasured in her memories of him during the endless sleep. “I’ve literally had enough of that for a lifetime.”

 “… Hope.” She pulls up her upper body to look at him. Her bracelets are almost blinding her in their reflections under the sunlight. “… Are you alright?”

He chuckles at that, a slightly sad sound, but his eyes are still liquidly human and profoundly _his_ , and her heart warms at that, recalling the imposing but eerie younger version of Hope floating over her Cathedral at the end of the line. “Well.” An all-too-knowing-smile. “Are _you_?”

She lets out a sound of exasperation. “You first.” A heartbeat’s pause. “Why were you at a church?”

His expression is rueful. “Good question. I’d usually say _intellectual curiosity_ or _spiritual development._ Since _you_ asked, though…” A near trail off, and a barely perceptible swallow. “Perhaps I feel a little… _guilty_. And _responsible_.”

“Was it actually you?” They both know what she means. The fourteen-year-old Hope rising gracefully like a god after the final toll of the doomsday clock – Lightning had vaguely mentioned something called an Ark and the plans of God, yet too much of what happened at the end had gone unexplained. “At the… Cathedral?”

He sighs, appears to regard the grass fondly for a moment, and then relents. There are still several young children playing just in front of them in the garden, and a few oblivious parents running after them to take photos. She is collecting the wilted and fallen blooms to make a wreath. “What if I tell you the answer is _yes_ , but also _no_?”

“Don’t give me riddles, Hope, please.” She makes a face as she feels the velvet texture of the petals between her fingers, presses it once against her face. “What actually happened between you and God?”

He stands up awkwardly before falling onto the grass next to her. Even though he’s grown a lot taller – a lot older – a lot wearier – slouching as he is, it’s almost as if they are both young again, a pair of oddball l’Cie sharing overwhelming truths and abashed secrets at the pulse vestige or the Tsubaddran Highlands. Five hundred years of a child’s abandonment approaches – and hesitantly touches – a thousand years of irredeemable reverie. The invisible barrier holds its breath waiting for itself to break. “It’s kind of a really long story. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

He’s not wearing gloves. She drops the finished wreath over his lap and into his hands. “If you don’t mind telling me.”

“Well, you definitely deserve to hear it.” A soft breeze, a seabird’s call, and then his eyes are obscured by a curtain of silver hair, hidden – she suddenly discerns – by the moon and stars. _Has he seen the universe itself?_ “I’ve, uh… given you a _really hard time_.”


End file.
